b mused: July 2015

July's Postcard of the Month

Happy leaping froggies.

A couple of months ago, my friend/neighbor, Jessica,

(who's also our wonderful Town Clerk)

presented me with a bag of frogs. And toads.

Well, frog and toad stamps. :)

And I knew they'd make their way into one of the summer postcards.

Or SOME of them.

I wanted to use as many as I could,

but ended up just using these four for this month's postcard:

We don't actually see (real) frogs around our property,

but there are THOUSANDS of little toads -

most a fraction of this one's size!

We do, however, seem to have quite a few not-real frogs that pop up in our everyday life:

Harold:

Ralph:

And Al:

All made by my dear old friend Val.

Not to mention my See/Hear/Speak no evil Rainforest Alliance*

frog mug:

I perused frog images online, to see what might inspire, and found these:

4 FROGS (WATER LILIES NR. 8), by Ron Hurst.

And this cute, silly lily - and frog - cake:

Along with this more subtle Japanese print:

I'm always picking up on echoes/confirmations of my chosen monthly theme

as I work towards production.

There was this photo of a frog in Philly:

that Maddie, my dear friend, co-worker on Saturdays

at our beloved Richmond Food Shelf and Thrift Store - http://www.richmondfoodshelfvt.org/,

and recently married (to great dancer and swell fella, Sam)**

snapped during a recent PA trip.

And then sent me when I mentioned my theme during a recent Saturday shift lull. :)

And there were a few other echoes.***

I stopped by the local ReStore to drop off a bag o' no-longer-needed stuff, and, as I was about to walk out (having restrained my inevitable refilling of said bag to just a few picture frames...), what did I spy but:

Ah! More frog theme confirmation!

And, since my sole teapot from home migrated to the studio a few years back,

I could actually use another teapot, so... :)

I had this scrap of Christmas wrapping paper, that was very appealing:

that I wanted to include in the materials I used for this month's cards.

So, I threw together a prototype (left), and then revised a bit (the other one):

This bold, Egyptian-y fan paper

rather insistently demanded inclusion in some way. (see Steps 20, 29, and 44)

The Fixin's

(again: +/-...)

The Steps The Movie. :)

The Steps

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4 - I had plenty of this great aqua rice paper, so...

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7 - I didn't have enough brown rice paper to do a 'square',

Step 8 - So I added this other nice handmade brown paper.

Step 9 - Cool, waxy marbled paper, that implies water rather nicely.

Step 10 - Here come the lily pads.

Step 11

Step 12

Step 13

Step 14

Step 15

Step 16

Step 17

Step 18 - This is one of my favorite effects -

the punched holes revealing the bright greens.

Step 19

Step 20 - Fan paper made it in!

Step 21

Step 22

Step 23

Step 24 - And the Christmas wrap.

Step 25

Step 26

Step 27

Step 28

Step 29

Step 30

Step 31 - Leaping frogs!

Step 32

Step 33

Step 34

Step 35

Step 36

Step 37

Step 38

Step 39

Step 40

Step 41- And now the dots.***

Step 42

Step 43

Step 44

Step 45

Step 46

Step 47

Step 48 - Just before wrapping up production, I made a birthday card for my friend, Margaret****, which inspired the addition of a couple more notes. Oh yeah. :)

Panel of 21 of July's postcards:

Fin.

*http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/, where I worked, on and off, for @ ten years. Right here in little downtown Richmond! That is where the headquarters for RA's forestry/forest products certification program, SmartWood, http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/forestry/certification is oh-so-conveniently (for me) located. What a great, internationally-flavored, not to mention, meaningful place to have worked.

***I will confess to spending the past 3 Junes rather rabidly engrossed in season after season of the ridiculously wonderful Netflix series "Orange Is The New Black". Part of my July's postcard production ambiance.

And lo and behold, doesn't a frog make an appearance! Poor ol' disturbed prisoner counselor, Sam Healy, is in session with his own counselor and remarks:

"And now I'm sitting in an office with some weird painting of frogs,